by John McCormick
ALBIA, Iowa — At times Thursday, it was as if Sen. Barack Obama was running against two Clintons.
Former President Bill Clinton was campaigning for his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, when he said in western Iowa that the failure to pass universal health care during his administration should fall on him, not her.
“She has taken the rap for some of the problems … that were far more my fault than hers,” he said.
Obama, an Illinois Democrat, responded during a stop in central Iowa that he did not want to dispute the former president’s characterization. But then he did.
“If part of your basis for experience is the work you did on health care, then presumably, when it didn’t work that’s part of experience as well,” he said.
Obama declined to respond directly to whether the former president, who also suggested this week that his wife is being attacked in ways similar to the blows Sen. John Kerry suffered from the so-called “swift boat” ads of the 2004 campaign, is muddying the waters.
“We’re focused on trying to deliver a message of the kind of president I would be and why I think I would be the best nominee for the Democratic Party,” Obama said. “My understanding is that President Clinton is not on the ballot.”
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